


Five Things That Never Happened to Lady Capulet

by Carmarthen



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Rómeó és Júlia (Színház)
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mother-Daughter Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-03
Updated: 2014-07-03
Packaged: 2018-02-07 07:04:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1889493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carmarthen/pseuds/Carmarthen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five paths Lady Capulet never took, in short form.</p>
<p><b>Content notes:</b> implied/mentioned suicide, hints of incest (Lady Capulet/her brother), and a parent striking a child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Things That Never Happened to Lady Capulet

I. 

She is five when it happens. They ought not to have been chasing each other through the kitchen, and her cousin didn’t mean it, of course, but that was little comfort when she lay awake at night, whimpering from the pain of the burns.

She lives, praise be to the Virgin, but she knows when she looks in her mother’s spotted, blurred mirror at the shiny red scars across her check, running down her neck into the bodice of her dress, that she will never be beautiful.

II. 

There is not enough in the family coffers to dower her. Oh, she knows Father wants to see her settled well—with a distant cousin if nothing more advantageous can be arranged—and she has her own dreams, dreams of whirling through bright-spangled crowds at Carnevale, dreams of catching the eyes of wealthy, handsome young men, perhaps even the Prince himself—

—but they are only that, dreams. “I feel myself called to a religious life,” she tells Father and Mother, her eyes downcast as she ignores her brother’s muffled snort of disbelief. At least she can decide her own fate this much; and there’s power in this path, perhaps, if she is careful. Abbesses have advised kings, before; have changed the fates of nations.

There are more important things than silk gowns and jewels, or the admiration of young men of no consequence.

III. 

They are drawing up the guest list for Julia’s christening. "No," she tells her husband, whose eyes still gleam with adoration when he looks on her, the mother of his perfect daughter. "She was my friend, when we were girls, and I see no reason not to keep her such only because men long dead once offended each other. Has not the Prince himself ordered you to cease your feuding? You will only earn his favor by your magnanimity."

And then, fearing she has overstepped, she takes his arm and leans closer, breathing gently in his ear, “Please, my most dear lord, for me.”

Lady Montague, her shy young son still in skirts by her side, coos over the infant Julia; her husband remarks on what a fine lad Lord Capulet’s nephew is growing into. Everyone’s dagger remains sheathed.

IV. 

They say, afterwards, that Lady Capulet was always too close to her brother, unnaturally close; it was not meet, for a brother and sister to be so often together past childhood.

They say other things, too, fouler things, but not where a dead woman’s innocent daughter might hear them, or where her hot-headed nephew might choose to correct them with steel.

All Julia knows is that her uncle is dead, fallen to a Montague blade this fortnight past; and her mother is dead, fallen from the bridge over the Adige, and no one will say how either of these things came to pass.

V. 

"I don’t want to be like you," Julia says, crying. "Did marriage to a man you didn’t love ever make you happy? I’m not a child, mother, nor blind—I see you drink and make eyes at the servants, and I don’t think you’ve ever been happy, not once—"

She slaps Julia without thinking about it, and is immediately sorry. The print of her hand stands out red on Julia’s pale cheek, a reproach for all her failures. She had not made a son, nor been much of a mother to her daughter. "That’s not what happened," she says, her voice brittle in her own ears. "Never say I didn’t—don’t—love your father." It had not been _her_ love that cooled.

"Romeo loves me." Julia’s voice holds all the throbbing, unshakeable conviction of the young. "He loves me, and I love him, and he doesn’t care if we have sons or daughters or no children at all, so long as we have each other. I won’t marry Paris. I won’t sin before God and love by living such a lie. I’d die first. I’d _die._ ”

"Very well," says Lady Capulet, clutching her skirts until her knuckles go white—she will not weep in front of her daughter, not now, not when there have been so many humiliations already in this day. "What do you wish me to do?"

**Author's Note:**

> I actually...kind of really want an AU where Ladies Montague and Capulet are rival nuns angling for the post of Mother Superior. 16th century convents were really interesting places, especially for ambitious women...the rest of the story wouldn't port over, but I'd read it anyway.


End file.
